STP 100 | How I Learned to Embrace Mistakes and Pivot
===
[00:00:00] James Marland: Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice Podcast. I'm James Marland, your guide to turning big ideas into real action. This is where therapists, coaches, and consultants find the support they need to take the next steps towards their dreams.
[00:00:20] James Marland: Let me help you put your mission in motion. Hello therapists.
[00:00:28] James Marland: Are you looking for a way to expand your influence with an online educational product? I've got good news. This is the last week you can sign up for the sustainable therapist empowerment program. Cohort. It's a cohort of therapists where I guide them through breaking through the bottlenecks. Of releasing an online product.
[00:00:48] James Marland: It's not a one-time event. This is actually a six month program where I walk with you step-by-step to break down the bottlenecks and achieve your goals. This is the last week to sign up.
[00:00:59] James Marland: [00:01:00] Email me, James, at course creation studio.com
[00:01:03] James Marland: or go to the contact page to set up an appointment with me. I'd love to hear what your dream is. Let's put your mission in motion together. Hello, and welcome to a special 100th episode of the scaling therapy practice. I'm going to be sharing with you lessons that I've learned what I've done wrong. Maybe a few things that I've done, right. And where we're going to go forum this point on. A lot of this episode. In some of the realizations has come from. The just being, giving myself permission to think again, I'm reading the book, Adam GRA by Adam Grant.
[00:01:51] James Marland: Think again, and it's just telling you to re-examine your. Just your, your assumptions. What do you [00:02:00] think is right and wrong and just be okay with making mistakes. Um, I've often thought if I ever write a biography or have a book written about me, it would be. Um, The life and times of James Meyerland, mistakes were made or maybe mistakes were made the life and times of James Meyerland.
[00:02:18] James Marland: And then I would misspell a couple words in the title because spelling is not my. Spelling's not my, uh, strength. So, okay. A hundred episodes lessons learned what I've done wrong and what's comes next. First I want to celebrate the milestone. A hundred episodes is a lot of episodes. Uh, you hear about people who start podcasting and they get into it.
[00:02:41] James Marland: And it's just a grind, like. You don't realize how much work it is to come up with ideas, get, get, uh, gas. Do schedules. Do the marketing do the blogging, recording, editing. It's actually, uh, it's, it's a lot of work. So a hundred episodes represents. [00:03:00] You know, four to eight hours, an episode of planning, recording, scheduling, editing. And, and all that.
[00:03:06] James Marland: So. Wow. I've learned a lot. I'm a lot quicker at what I do. I loved some of the tools that I use. I think I'm a better interviewer. Um, And, and, and one of the reasons for doing the podcast was if I have a message to say, I got to practice it. Like if I'm going to be a speaker, if I'm going to be a guest. Uh, some on somebody else's podcast, if I'm going to. Uh, go to conferences and present things.
[00:03:34] James Marland: I got to, I got to put in the work I got to put in the reps. So I believe that the podcast. You know, has just been, uh, uh, a grand experiment to say, Hey, I have something to say. And. You know, do the work to get better at what you're doing.
[00:03:51] James Marland: That everything hasn't gone a hundred percent correct.
[00:03:54] James Marland: The initial idea of the scaling fair pre practice. Was with David [00:04:00] Hall and myself, I was, uh, the host, David was the cohost. And we would start talking about. How to grow your therapy practice. If you go back to the horrible episode one. Uh, where we stumbled through what our process was. We were going to help people scale in different domains. Scale with staff scale with products. Scale with networking or scale with systems. It was a great idea.
[00:04:28] James Marland: I loved it. And it worked really well because David had the front end of the office where. He, he knew the staff. He knew the process. And just tips and tricks for growing a group practice. And I had the backend. I knew systems. I knew technology. I loved helping with hiring and virtual assistance and all that backend stuff.
[00:04:49] James Marland: So it, it worked really well.
[00:04:52] James Marland: Uh, and we called it the scaling therapy practice. Cause it made fit. We want to help you scale in those domains.
[00:04:58] James Marland: one of the mistakes. I think [00:05:00] that that. I think I've made. Is that the name just no longer fit? Like, yes, I help people scale, but it's more about online course creation and achieving your mission and, and letting your light shine in the world. It's not necessarily about. Scaling building and an income. Measures.
[00:05:20] James Marland: If people come to the practice and come to the show and I say, oh, it's a, it's a show about helping therapy offices scale, which it used to be. That makes sense, but I feel like I'm half a. Half a host here. Uh, I D I only have half the experience. I'm not a therapist. I'm not somebody that. Runs a therapy office.
[00:05:43] James Marland: My therapy off the last time I was in a therapy office working. With, with therapy office was five or six, maybe even seven years ago now where I worked for a freestanding psych hospital and I managed a intake department and I helped with inpatient services. Like that's, [00:06:00] that's been a while now. And so I feel like the longer, the longer I'm away from that, the. The less, the name fits. But I've held onto it because.
[00:06:12] James Marland: That's how I started.
[00:06:13] James Marland: That's where I have all this SEO into it. If I share my links with people. It's got scaling therapy practice in it. So now. The all those links. If I change will be broken. So I'm holding onto this, believing that.
[00:06:30] James Marland: That. Just producing content. We'll lead people to me, even though the content is only half right now. One, one of my realizations as I go to think again. And I think about branding is the names, just a mismatch because the name. The name promotes something that.
[00:06:50] James Marland: that that's only half, right? So. My focus is on helping therapists scale through online educational products. [00:07:00]
[00:07:00] James Marland: More importantly, though, I want to help. Therapists who are irrationally passionate about their ideas, about helping a specific person? Or a specific group of people. And the scaling of the practice comes out of helping more people, not helping more people skills. the, the idea is the helping people is first.
[00:07:22] James Marland: I want to help people, help people. Creating income comes second. There's probably plenty of shows out there that income is first. And that's what I thought. That's what I thought I needed to do that I gotta, I gotta bang the drum of income, income, income. So that people will. Be attracted to the show.
[00:07:42] James Marland: The problem is it's not super authentic to who I am. And so that, that. That shows up in my big mistake. Number two is like, Misaligned marketing. The message. Was designed to attract [00:08:00] the person who is. Who has a big problem of burnout. Like they, they they're burnout. They want to diversify their income. They're running out of time. They, they want more income to experience more freedom.
[00:08:15] James Marland: And I want that for them too. So all the marketing. Is designed like the web page and you just, even the names of the products scaling every practice. What am I. Online courses is, um, Knowledge income navigator. My new cohort program, I called it sustainable therapist, empowerment program. All those messages are talking to the person who wants to earn more money.
[00:08:40] James Marland: They're the burnt out therapist, the therapist that wants more income. The therapist who maybe has maxed out. There. That their fee for their fees. And they're, they're not able to, you know, the, the market won't bear any more fees. So how do they expand or maybe they're [00:09:00] looking for retirement and how do they. Earn money, earn the money that they can take a month off. Or. Um, work one day less. Um, a week, those types of messages, which is all fine.
[00:09:14] James Marland: I. I support that I want you to do that. I think online educational products will do that. But that's, that's focused the message on avoiding the pain. The pain of not having enough time, the pain of being tied to the desk, the pain of not having a retirement plan. The pain of building somebody else's kingdom, the pain of.
[00:09:39] James Marland: I'm missing family things or, or working through lunches or not having enough time.
[00:09:44] James Marland: Those are all real pains. Those are all things that an online educational product can help with. But. The other way to market or to promote a product is to help people who are [00:10:00] irrationally passionate about a topic. Or a subject. The most people are in the middle that there. The problem, they have the problem that their problem is trying to solve.
[00:10:12] James Marland: They're either not aware of it, or it's not a big enough problem to go out and spend money to solve it. Sure. Sure you, you, you work a few extra nights a week and you're like, ah, I should be earning more money, but it's not a big enough problem that it goes to the pain point. And you're like, oh man, I got to find a way to stop GRA. Stop. Working until 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM, five days a week and half a day on Saturday. That's a big pain point and that would go to the person who wants to avoid that pain. The other side, the other side of that continuum is the people who are irrationally passionate about doing something. Uh, cause an emotion is part of their backstory.
[00:10:55] I'm learning to think again. If I look at what lights [00:11:00] me up, it's helping the person who wants to help other people. Helping the least of these helping the, the peop the pers the. The therapist or coach or consultant, who's like, I have this great idea and it would help a lot of people and I really want to do it, but it's too difficult to do.
[00:11:21] James Marland: I think, I think I'm just going to let the dream die. I'm like, no, don't let the dream die. There's ways to work it out. We can help you, which will grow your impact. And influence and I think. I think all my marketing. Is right now, anyways, is designed to it's focused on helping the pers the. People. Increase there. Income, which is true.
[00:11:49] James Marland: I want to do that. But what is more aligned with me is I want to help. Uh, therapists, um, faith-based therapists, people who are. [00:12:00] Who are irrationally passionate about a certain group of people help those people the most it's the goal. The, the other side of. Uh, avoiding the pain. It's going towards a goal that you are. That you are irrationally passionate about. And so I've realized, so he goes to the mistake like that.
[00:12:21] James Marland: My marketing isn't. Isn't aligned with my passion. Yes, I want to help you make money, but I am more passionate about helping the person reach the audience that they care about. So over the next year, it's probably going to take a year or two. Um, But maybe a year let's, let's just hope by the end, by the end of 2025, all the branding and the courses and everything will be realigned to this new passion that I have. That. I'm irrationally passionate about helping the person achieve their dream. Before it dies because I think that's, that's what I need. That's what I need.
[00:12:57] James Marland: I have all these ideas I have. All this. [00:13:00] Um, passion. And. I'm just hoping for a little, you know, uh, A little bit of encouragement, a little bit of, you know, of. You can do it. A little bit of. It's okay to make mistakes. Look at how far you've come. That's what I need. I need that. And I want to provide that to other people before they let their dream die.
[00:13:25] James Marland: So. Um, being. Misaligned marketing was probably something I had to discover as I went through the process. It's not something that was like the first thing that came up when, when I'm talking, because when you do talk to people, Um, A lot of times they are like, well, I do want freedom.
[00:13:46] James Marland: Uh, I do want income. But it's, it's, it's the passion of helping other people that really energizes me. So I need to be clear, like I can't, I can't have two marketing messages. [00:14:00] Of Hey.
[00:14:02] James Marland: This course will help you. Create all this income and freedom, or this course will help you reach the audience that you really want to reach. Yes, it does both, but I have to pick, I have to pick, I have to pick a side, so I'm going to pick. Over the next year. You'll see new marketing and messages. Of me picking the side of marketing towards the people that want to reach a group of people that they can help the most.
[00:14:27] James Marland: The more authentic you are the easier it is for people to connect with you.
[00:14:32] James Marland: And when it's easy for people to connect with you, it's easy for them to. Use your resources and then it's easy for them to gain benefit from you. And then easy for them to eventually buy from you when they are ready. It's okay to admit it's okay. It's just okay. To admit when something isn't working, reflect, think again, pivot and then grow, try something new.
[00:14:57] James Marland: As we start 20, [00:15:00] 25. I want to let you know that I'm here for you. I really want you to make a difference in the world. I want you to help the audience and the group of people that you dream of helping, but you don't know how.
[00:15:12] James Marland: If you have any thoughts about this shift? Let me know I'm James, at course creation studio.com. I'd love to know what resonates with you or what you felt like. Just hit like a lead balloon. I'm always looking for. I'm always looking for feedback from the audience on what helps them the most. This is James for course creation studio and the scaling therapy practice. It's now time to put your mission in motion. ā€‹
